Losing My Way

It takes three shots of heroin mixed with four Valium and a bottle of Hennessey to bring him down. He always wondered what his breaking point was and now he knows. He’s not sure if he should be alive. Or really, that he even is.

The last thing he remembers is seeing is Jesus. Or so it had seemed. But then he realized that he was lying on the floor beside the television and some evangelist was on preaching about repentance. Even in his haze, he found the irony.

He doesn’t know how long he was out. Just knows it was long enough for his body to go into shock and for him to act like a madman when he woke up. Even with burning eyes and a racing heart, he blew through boxes and dresser drawers frantically searching for some sort of fix. Any sort. He didn’t care. Anything that would make him feel numb. Normal . Alive.

He cursed at her when she told him that he wouldn’t find anything. Then he threw things. A lamp. A picture. And when he was done, he looked at her and asked her what the fuck she was doing there. When she said he had called her, he told her she was a liar and yelled at her to get out. She didn’t.

He feels like he’s dying. That every nerve in his body is being pierced. That he’s being hit repeatedly with a sledgehammer. He’s sweating when he’s cold. He’s shivering when he’s hot. He stopped counting the number of times he’s hit his head on the toilet as he vomited his guts up. Or that his hands have not allowed him to grasp anything for shaking so bad. Right now, dying seems like a good thing.

She stays and he doesn’t know why. Wiping his forehead and neck with a damp towel. Holding glasses of water to his chapped lips. She cleans up his vomit. The shards of glass. The food he spills. And throws.

He gets angry. First at his parents. For loving him too much and giving him too much. At the world. For offering him the enticement of a break from a reality. Of a high that matches no other. Of an exhilaration that he can’t live without.

Then he gets mad at her. Again. He blames her for fucking with his mind. For getting him started on this stuff to begin with. He yells at her and tells her that if he had never met her then he wouldn’t be like this. That he wishes she was dead or at least dying the way he feels he is.

But she just listens. When he tells her to leave again. That with all the people in his life, he would have never fucking called her. Even then, she just listens. But doesn’t leave. And he knows she won’t.

The tears arrive soon after. While his head is in the toilet and her hands are bracing his shoulders. He falls against her and then both against the sink. He doesn’t understand why he let his life get so fucked up. Why he couldn’t tell anyone that it was. Why he hid everything from everyone because he didn’t know how to admit that he was human. That he wasn’t invincible.

He cries until he feels he can’t cry anymore. Till he’s said everything and anything about his perfect and fucked up life. And then he leans against her as she takes him to bed and pulls the blankets up around him.

When he wakes hours later, he finds her still watching him from a chair in the corner of the room. He jokes that she looks like hell and for the first time they both smile. Then there’s the silence as he begins to remember the past two days. The pain and anger. Vomit and tears. The desperate phone call he made to her just before he passed out.

He looks at her when he’s done and asks her where her kids are. She shakes her head as she tells him that her mom is watching them. He questions about Kevin but this time doesn’t watch as she says he’s away.

And then he asks her why. Why did she actually come to help him? A question he’s really been asking himself since he found her there.

He watches as she turns to look out the window. He knows she just doesn’t want to look at him.

Because you asked me to. Her voice doesn’t break.

Of all the people in his life, he called her. Her. He closes his eyes and lowers his head.

He always wondered what his breaking point was and now he knows. He just doesn’t know how to fix it.